🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Civil War Astrolabe/Navigation/Sextant Piece?

[USNFLYR]

Treasure Net experts,
My brother found this item near the shoreline on an eastern seaboard beach where an old lighthouse once stood. Also, he has buttons and other items indicating some CW presence. The patina and metal (brass?) looks CW period. The knurl ridges indicate it was meant to be twisted on and off. Once realizing it had a rose colored lens, we narrowed our search to a device that could filter out the sun. We were thinking navigation? To measure where the sun angle…in use with a sextant? Can anyone point to a source where we could assign the correct era?

 

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[Blackfoot58]

Definitely looks like a threaded, screw-in, shaded aperture for some type of optics. Would it have been a filter for a periscope?

 

[USNFLYR]

Definitely looks like a threaded, screw-in, shaded aperture for some type of optics. Would it have been a filter for a periscope?

Thanks, I’ll check in to that option. Definitely worth exploring!

 

[Tony in SC]

Maybe from a telescope or transit. Can't see it being from a periscope?

 

[The Rebel]

Cool find! I'd say Brass and definitely to filter the sun out with the small opening.